Monthly Archives: January 2013

I recently ran across this analysis by Dan Hind in Al Jazeera. It’s a delighfully cogent summary of the main drivers of the scientific enterprise: unaccountable power in the form of national and corporate investment, which determines to a large … Continue reading →

A video from PhD Comics. What is PhD Comics? Piled Higher and Deeper – Life (or the lack thereof) in Academia (also known as PhD Comics), is a newspaper and web comic strip written and drawn by Jorge Cham that follows the lives of several grad … Continue reading →

Tom Scott did something extraordinary last week: he typed in searches on Facebook’s new Graph Search feature and posted images of the results on his tumblr, called ActualFacebookGraphSearches. … which sounds quite un-extraordinary. Except that Scott – something of an … Continue reading →

Slow ethics provides for a more sustainable and tempered approach to professional ethics. It would go beyond simple monomaniacal explanations, quick fixes and single values and algorithms. It would involve learning from the past, appreciating complexity and taking time to … Continue reading →

My initial reaction is that the single-day webinar in which I presented on Tuesday (and in which I was the only humanist – !) was a success. Excepting some minor and very intermittent technical difficulties with sound and visual, the presenters … Continue reading →

Interesting piece forwarded to me by Holly Falk-Krzesinski: Philosophers In The Enterprise: As Bacon Says, Knowledge Is Power – semanticweb.com. Holly recently made the move from Academe to industry. It’s something all of us PhDs (not only philosophers, and not … Continue reading →

Just finished listening to this webinar, in which CSID’s own Kelli Barr participated as a presenter. One of the most interesting aspects of the webinar was the discussion of the use of new ways for the individual researcher to extend … Continue reading →

Now, this is something for us really to think about. Can vegans stomach the unpalatable truth about quinoa? | Joanna Blythman | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk. It’s silly to suggest that vegans are to blame, of course. It’s all … Continue reading →

The City of Denton is about to release a document explaining all the reasons why we can’t have a stronger ordinance to protect our health, safety, and welfare. The technicalities are complex, but the message is simple: No we can’t. … Continue reading →

I left a comment* about one point I take issue with; but this is a good article, with lots of good advice. Don’t Underestimate NSF’s New Grant-Submission Rules – Manage Your Career – The Chronicle of Higher Education. * Just … Continue reading →

Heather Piwowar (aka @ResearchRemix) has just published a pre-print version of her recently published Nature article on NSF’s new bio-sketch requirements. First draft of just-published Value all Research Products « Research Remix. This version is as interesting from the meta-standpoint … Continue reading →

NSF’s public radio doc “Mind of the Innovator” airs on KQED in San Francisco… Innovators begin with real-world problems and find solutions through technology, imagination, hard work and a drive to make our lives better. This special program from Richard … Continue reading →

“Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated.” -Martin Luther … Continue reading →

Turns out that brainstorming–that go-to approach to generating new ideas since the 1940s–isn’t the golden ticket to innovation after all. Both Jonah Lehrer, in a recent article in The New Yorker, and Susan Cain, in her new book Quiet, have asserted as much. … Continue reading →

CSID is proud once again to co-sponsor the biennial UNT Comic Studies Conference. You can download the FULL PROGRAM here. This meeting seeks to overcome the antiquated understandings of comic books as “children’s trash” with no redeeming or literary value. … Continue reading →